INDONESIA A NEWS

Dozens of young men and women have been detained for being "punk" and disturbing the peace in Aceh, Indonesia's most devoutly Muslim province. They are being held in a remedial school, where they are undergoing "re-education" . Rights groups have expressed concern after photographs emerged of the young men having their mohawks and funky hairstyles shaved off by Aceh's police. They look sullen and frightened as they are forced into a communal bath. But Aceh's police say they are not trying to harm the youths, they are trying to protect them. The 64 punks, many of whom are from as far away as Bali or Jakarta, were picked up on Saturday night during a local concert.  Aceh police spokesman Gustav Leo says there have been complaints from residents nearby. The residents did not like the behaviour of the punks and alleged that some of them had approached locals for money. Mr Leo stressed that no-one had been charged with any crime, and there were no plans to ...

When the Jakarta governor offered a hefty pay rise last week to workers, he successfully headed off a major strike. But almost immediately, workers went on the rampage in another part of the country demanding a wage hike too. It is another illustration of the most recent and, for investors, troubling risk they face in what has become one of the darlings of the emerging economies. The big drivers for the strikes have been high prices for the commodities that are the backbone of the Indonesian economy, rising costs and a strong sense that the country's widely trumpeted economic successes have not been shared. "Workers are not dumb. They are going to see prices are high. They're going to say 'we want our just rewards'," said Dick Blin, spokesman for the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which covers the bulk of Indonesia's main industries. The highest profile -- and so far most costly -- strike has...

At age 17 Djoko Susanto started managing his parents' modest 560-foot stall inside Pasar Arjuna, a traditional market in Jakarta. The stall, called Sumber Bahagia ("source of happiness"), sold groceries at the time, but soon Djoko decided there was a bigger opportunity peddling cigarettes. Business was brisk as not only smokers but also small wholesalers and retailers became frequent customers.  His gamble on smokers paid off in a bigger way than the enterprising shopkeeper could have imagined, attracting notice from Putera Sampoerna (No. 9 on our list of Indonesia's richest), whose own company was then one of the nation's largest makers of clove and tobacco cigarettes. The two met in the early 1980s and agreed in 1985 to build 15 similar stalls in several areas of Jakarta. The venture was successful and inspired the two to open a discount supermarket store named Alfa Toko Gudang Rabat. That same year Djoko became the sales and distribution director at Sampoerna...